[VIDEO] Income For All! Two Visions of a New Economy

[VIDEO] Income For All! Two Visions of a New Economy

Should the left champion jobs for all or advance a basic income as part of a broader anti-work politics? Can we do both? Watch a special panel discussion with Alyssa Battistoni, Darrick Hamilton, Pavlina R. Tcherneva, and Jesse Myerson.

The United States’ partial and uneven recovery from the 2008 financial crisis — marked by the ballooning of the low-wage service sector, the gutting of public-sector unions, and persistent racial disparities in wages, employment rates, and wealth — calls for a new economic platform that would unite the employed and the unemployed, strengthen worker power, and point the way to a more democratic economy for the country as a whole. Two such policy proposals have recently been gaining traction on the left: a universal basic income, on the one hand, and a job guarantee on the other.

As part of New Economy Week (November 9-15, 2015), Dissent, Jacobin, and the New Economy Coalition brought together activists, journalists, and scholars to discuss these two proposals. Should the left champion jobs for all or advance a basic income as part of a broader anti-work politics? Can we do both? How should we as a society define and value work? And how can we as activists frame transformative demands that balance the constraints of our political moment with more utopian visions?

Watch the complete discussion here:

Panelists: Alyssa Battistoni (editor, Jacobin), Darrick Hamilton (professor of economics and urban policy at the New School), Pavlina R. Tcherneva (associate professor of economics, Bard College). Moderated by activist and writer Jesse Myerson.

Hosted by Verso Books
Video by Rebecca Rojer

Want more? Read Dissent’s online symposium on the basic income and a federal job guarantee here.